h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of my cats bought me a 'present' this morning ~ a dead bird, not just any old bird ~ a beautiful red-breasted Robin.

I know cats are natural hunters, and the catching, torture and killing of 'prey' is normal behaviour for them, but I hate it when they do it, and it saddens me when they kill something as special and enchanted as a Robin.

I'm not a superstitious person, but I can't help thinking, that the cat has bought me a bad omen.

Emmily

Emmily,(as an Animal)what the cats are doing, is simular to a pride of lions, they are fetching it to YOU!, to give you as leader of the pack, the first bite - the lions share as the saying goes. No bad luck, but it is a form of respect to you from the cat.....this is not daft but true...

so stop yer moaning and enjoy the reward as you have been honoured.

hi emmily.
i do know what you mean though. they think they are being good and bringing you a little present, when all you want to do is throttle them for killing the birds..

i dont have that problem anymore. the local foxes keep getting any cats that we have had in the past, so we gave up and invested in a hampster

helen

I was tempted to write my Entry on slow worms (A2998443)due to my cats bringing me dead ones as presents.

cats have good powers they stun there pray first then pounce lovely little pressie huh my mums cat brought them back feathers all over the room ,lol

Watch out for hamsters though, they might look cute, but they are deadly when in a herd. How seen the on telly, big grey animals with a long nose(about 7ft) and two 6ft long white teeth(canine looking)

cute pets hamsters but have u been biting by one oh boy lol

shugg, no way mate I run away to fast

It was the fact that it was a Robin, and it's near Christmas time, and Robins are associated with Chrismas and when my son was little his favourite story, that I had to read again and again to him, was 'The Christmas Robin'(even though it was April) and I've heard people say there's not as many Robins around as there used to be, now there's one less.

My usual reaction to my cat's presents, which tend to be bits of mice or birds, ie a head or a wing rather than whole ones, is to put my hands on my hips, glare at them, shake my head and say sarcastically 'Well, thank you very much, just what I always wanted' or similar.

I think gerbils are more lethal biters than hamsters...(it was lethal for this poor gerbil) I can remember when young, my younger brother putting his hand in our gerbils cage, and bringing it out with a scream and a gerbal hanging off his finger by it's teeth, he shook his finger to get the gerbil off, which flew across the room. End result ~ one screaming child with bleeding finger, and one dead gerbil.

Emmily

serious, Gerbils do have bad bites and can lead to doctor's for injections because of infections. Out of all domestic pets, after centuries, we still can't train cats fully, they rule

Have a look at this article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/175index.shtml

I vowed some years ago that I'd never put a collar on one of my cats again after this happened.

One of my previous cats wearing a collar, jumped up onto fence in garden, and somehow managed to catch one of her front legs in the collar as she jumped. The result being she was on the fence on 3 legs, the forth caught in the collar, it was lucky I was there to see this, and 'rescue' her from the situation. I immediatly removed her collar, and the other cat's when she came home and binned them.

I used to work for a cat charity, their were other accidents involing cats wearing collars, where the collars got caught when they jumped. The most memorable one (not to do with jmping) being; a cat that had a collar on from a kitten (approx 4 months old) it got lost, and continued to grow, with no owner to check and loosen the collar when needed, by the time the cat was caught, as a stray, the collar was enbeded into the cat's neck and had to be surgically removed.

I don't agree with that articles advice about having a bird table, IMO if you have cats, you don't have a bird table to encourage birds into your garden.

Emmily

Em, I apologise if my bit about hamsters etc offended, it wasn't meant to.

No Animal you didn't offend me at all I don't think I'd take anything you'd say seriously enough to let it offend me

I've had hamster too, when Alex (my son) was little. First one we had was called Oscar, can't think of the other hamsters names.

I bred from one of them, my local pet shop wouldn't take the babies, as they had enough, so I had to travel by to another pet shop. I had the baby hamsters in a plasic tank, inside a carrier bag, the did an emergency stop, which sent some of the babies onto the floor, so I had to scramble round bus floor, picking them up they were ok, none were injured.

Emmily

mornin emmily

when my daugher moved in with her fella, she was only allowed to have a hampster as a pet. no dogs. no cats etc..
which was all well and good till she left blokey. i was asked to hampster sit till she got herself settled and rehoused.
i took an immediate liking to 'boris' and went out and spent a fortune buying 'bubbles' and a suitable cage and all the things needed to keep him.
she decided that she didnt want 'boris' back as he would bring back the unwanted memories of her time with blokey.
so for a while i had 2 of them. one who slept all day as he was getting old and hadnt had much freedom to get out and explore and one that was maniacal. mine !!!

'boris' is now in hampster heaven, as he died of old age.
'bubbles' has the freedom of the downstairs rooms and goes everywhere, even climbing the curtains. doesnt take a blind bit of notice of a ginormous black lab cross who chases him around the house.
i too, have been bitten. you could see the look in his eye as he was about to do it.. talk about pain !!!
but that was when he was a baby, he has now calmed down and is easier to handle..

Ref. "....my younger brother putting his hand in our gerbils cage, and bringing it out with a scream and a gerbal hanging off his finger by it's teeth, he shook his finger to get the gerbil off, which flew across the room".

I remeember the identical accident happening to my son - with a rabbit!Only he had more trouble shaking the rabbit off.

Unusual way to keep a hamster serenity, bet he loves it a friend of mine used to have a Red-Kneed Taruntula called Boris, I can't say he was a cute

I used to have a couple of rabbits, bucks, that I kept in seperate hutches. One sunny day I though I'd let them have the run of the garden at the same time, rather than one at a time, knowing that two bucks are likely to fight, and figuring the garden was big enough for them to aviod each. Uh uh I was wrong (no surprise there ) they found each other and had a little scrap, I used my foot to push them apart, just as I was thinking I'd managed to seperate them without getting bitten Lady Penelopy jumped forward and bit my ankle whether he did that, because I'd spoilt his 'fun' or whether he took the oppertunity of revenge for being called Lady Penelopy I don't know.

Emmily

I was about to ask why you'd called a male rabbit 'Lady Penelope' until I red the last sentence. Did he have a pink Cadillac?

I can spell, honest!
That should have read 'read'.

Ok, ok I believe you, thousands wouldn't

Can't remember why we called him Lady Penelopy, it was at a time when my son liked Thunderbirds, but there were plenty of males names to choose from, no idea why and no, no pink cadilac.

Emmily